‘School Security’ Means Armed Teachers

In response to the NRA’s proposal to put armed guards in schools, gun grabbers have been shouting that armed security guards at Columbine High School weren’t effective in stopping the carnage there. [Click here for an account of the day’s events.] It’s become one of the staples of their argument against allowing trained personnel with firearms in schools. But the effectiveness of “school security” comes down to two factors . . .

Response time and competence. The response time of “school security” on a campus isn’t much different that the response time of a police officer in a town setting. It takes a spree shooter just one second to retrieve a hidden firearm and start shooting. But, depending on the size of the campus and the location of the security officer, it can take several minutes for security to be notified, get to the scene and react. When seconds count, school security may still be minutes away.

The second issue is competence with a firearm — the ability to hit what you’re aiming at. A school security officer at Columbine took several shots at one of the killers from 60 yards and missed. This means the officer either wasn’t trained to shoot at such distances, was incompetent at shooting at that distance, never trained under stress or some a combination of all of the above.

The only answer to the problem of reaction time is to have armed personal at the scene, not a radio call away. And that means teachers. Trained teachers with guns. The answer to the shooting skills problem is to provide better training than the NYC police officers who shot 11 innocent bystanders. That should be the easy part.

79 Responses to ‘School Security’ Means Armed Teachers

I think it’s funny how often the school security at Columbine is trotted out as proof it didn’t work, and then you remind these people about how the AWB was in full-effect by this point and also didn’t work, and somehow it’s just not the same.

This week we’ve heard that 1/3 of the schools already do have armed guards. Where are all the stories of their saving the day? We’ve seen a couple where they were there and didn’t. What about the times they sprung into action and stopped a mass shooter?

Remember the genius Pelosi? “We need to pass the bill to know whats in it.” Well same here. EVERY DANG SCHOOL NEEDS TO HAVE ARMED SECURITY FOR SAY FIVE YEARS, then I ‘ll get back to you with an answer.

Ever heard of deterrence? School shootings are random and statistically improbable events. That they should happen at 33% of schools, specifically those with guards is only realistic of a test environment, and really, if 1/3 of the schools in your area are armed, then why would you go after the small fraction that is armed instead of the other two target rich unarmed environments. So, if they aren’t a target, why would there be a story? As for the times that they were there and failed you can chalk those up to poor training since schools really didn’t take the threat seriously, or bad circumstances. But imagine if even 10% of the teachers were armed? Around here that is (in our elementary of 500 students) 6 staff members. That’s a lot of free, trained, and armed security that is already close enough to make a difference! Unlike the poorly trained, few security guards on a massive campus that had to be paid extra at Virginia Tech. See a difference?

One of the problems with your fantasy about arming the teachers is that most concealed carry permit holders are not highly-trained and mentally capable of intervening. You’re really suggesting that we increase the mediocrity of insufficiently-trained and inadequate gun owners to solve a problem that, by your own admission, rarely happens.

This is insanity. By increasing the numbers, you increase all the problems that go with gun proliferation, accidents, theft, negligence, and let’s not forgot the occasional good guy who goes off the rails. Many of those negative scenarios would play out before one single mass shooter is stopped.

So after Virginia Tech, Columbine and Sandy hook you’re saying we should not put armed security into the schools in the form of armed school staff and community volunteers, Mikeyb?

Instead we’ll try tougher gun laws that may not work, and if they do work, a very big if, it may take generations to see positive results. Remember there’re 300+ million guns and tons of ammo already out there.

Leave the kids defenseless? I’m going to keep saying this mikey, you’re the best recruiter the NRA has. I swear, there’re times I don’t believe you really exist. You must be a black ops creation of a pro gun group.

You really have difficulty with the truth. I never said we should not put armed guards in the schools. What I said is that it’s not the solution, gun control is.

About the 300 million guns. When it’s convenient for your mendacious argument, you guys like to pretend they’re “in circulation” and readily available to the criminals. Nothing could be further from the truth. Those guns are owned by people who, when constrained by proper gun control laws like no transfers without background checks, safe storage laws, etc., would be able to keep them from going to the criminals.

So make them better trained, have mandatory training every month for teachers carrying concealed in classrooms and have the state pay for that training. Saying they would be untrained isn’t an argument against doing it, it is a critique of how we could make that program better!

If arming teachers is such a bad idea, where are the parades of firearms trainers, security experts, cops showing up on TV chat shows to point out why it is a bad idea? Instead all I see are pundits, who are experts at none of the above, who screeches “You are stupid” at the top of their lungs instead of offering anything resembling a cogent argument.

Anybody who carries regularly is probably better trained than your average NYPD patrolman, the self proclaimed gold standard of police departments. I have demonstrated the ability to meet US military, Department of Defense civilian and IC qualification standards. My wife has never had to qualify but she stands in their with our local SWAT guys on a pistol range. I don’t think we are atypical among shooters. There is ample empirical evidence that even minimally trained armed citizens are effective in defensive situations.

The bottom line is that you want to create an UK-like environment where self-defense is impossible and criminals can have free reign.

How do you know everyone’s training? Ohh wait, you don’t. I have a concealed carry and I’m better trained than the majority of police between my training in the Marines, my competition shooting, and my own training. That’s just me and I’m not placing very high in my competitions. Quit making statements that are untrue and unsubstantiated, they just make you look foolish.

James Holmes, the Aurora shooter, chose the only theatre of 7 nearby that did not allow concealed carry. I think it’s pretty safe to say that nobody wants to be shot at. MikeB. Is free to other otherwise, but that would be a pretty stupid argument, even for him.

By the way the Portland, Oregon Clackamass mall shooter was confronted by a lawfully armed individual. The shooter ran into a stairwell and took his own life. Not a whole lot of press on that because it didn’t fit into the gun control narrative.

So, MikeB, if armed guards are so ineffective you’re welcome to convince your leaders and police that they don’t need any. Good luck with that.

Mike,
All those “issues” you listed are nothing compared to the criminal activities the average person may be subjected to. Every day, innocent people are assaulted, raped, and/or killed and it will only get worse when our abilities to defend ourselves are taken away. I have a six year old daughter and I don’t want her to be a victim when she is an adult. The best way to ensure that is to make sure she is trained and armed. She already knows how to shoot and gun safety and before you ask, no she can’t get to my guns when I’m not around.

@ Mikeb302000
The NRA is proposing training for teachers and will foot the bill.
You also need to realize that in many cases when faced with opposition the shooter ends it himself. So even if they are not champion shooters it will do the job to prevent the deaths of our children.

Keep talking mikey. You’re the best friend we pro gun people have. Every time you post some assinine remark like this the NRA sports wood. I swear we need a better quality under bridge dweller on this site.

Mikeb, I hadn’t seen you in so long, I thought you’d abandoned us to the outer darkness of those unenlightened by the glorious radiance of our liberal betters.

As for your question, I will respond with a couple of my own. Exactly how many school shootings have their been in this nation’s history? At how many of them have had armed teachers present? Some very scholarly people on this site have told us that there has been exactly one (1) MASS shooting that has occurred in a non-Gun Free zone. Let me ask you something else, Mikeb. If an armed presence is so ineffective as a deterrent, why do so many liberal elites send THEIR kids to school where they have armed guards? Yes, yes, you’ll say that the president’s children are at risk of kidnapping by interests inimical to the nation, but that doesn’t mean that all the others are as well. And even if that were true, if it works for the president’s kids, why wouldn’t it work for ours?

“… If an armed presence is so ineffective as a deterrent, why do so many liberal elites send THEIR kids to school where they have armed guards?”

I dont want to promote any gun free zones or gun control but I deffinatley signed the petition to make the White House and school the Obama girls go to, gun free. Let them give up their arms and PROVE it wont work.

“Some very scholarly people on this site have told us that there has been exactly one (1) MASS shooting that has occurred in a non-Gun Free zone.”

Are you that much of a mindless follower? Your scholarly compadre, Bruce, was mistaken (lying) when he said it and when I called him on it providing the link to the list, he refused to back down. That’s what you guys do.

And then guys like you come along and repeat the lie.

My question is why is it necessary to do all that if you’re winning and if you’re right?

MikeB, I am sincerely curious; are you an NRA recruiter? You do a good job as one.

I, like a lot of nominal gun owners, like to think that almost all the ordinary people who believe in gun control are rational and decent, and just misinformed, not the frothing irrational elitist that they are portrayed as. And then we encounter you. You are the best argument against the gun control movement I have ever encountered.

Before I joined this site, I did not consider myself a member of the gun control group, but I did believe in “common sense restrictions” on machine guns and other military weapons. I have since changed my mind. Thank you. You are not solely responsible for my decision, but you were certainly a contributing factor.

I think what Bruce and others were referring to was the Kathy Gifford’s shooting which took place in a parking lot. That was not a gun free zone.
Columbine
VA Tech
University of Texas
Okios
Aurora
Sandy Hook
Those were all gun free zones.

Altough we now have the shooting which took place in the Texas movie theater, and also the Oregon mall shooting. Those were not gun free zones, but they all had extremely low body counts. I don’t even think Texas qualified as a mass shooting nor did Oregon. But then again there was armed response there.

And what do you expect mikey? You are working to take away our rights and freedoms. This is a PRO GUN SITE and you show up here to spout some inane drivel aimed at punishing me for crimes I haven’t committed.

You’re not part of the solution Mikey, you’re part of the problem. If you want to be warmly recieved start emailing Difi.

Liberal media will not print “gun saved the day stories”. Beyond that & hopefully not you is, what part of a criminal being stopped by taking a 45 high power hollow point to the face don’t you quite understand. Do you think these are “super criminals”. Yes, good guys need to sharpen their aim & then criminals will die instead of kids. Then you & the libs can grieve for the poor monster whos precious life was cut short by a school guard. Remember tokie? The victims family was wondering “what about our loved one”, the hollywood liberal fools could care less, same as you mike, Randy

I am sure glad Mikey isn’t in-charge of something like the TSA because this would be his response to 9/11, I think we need to ban box cutters!
“What about putting some armed guards on the plane, Mikey?” Ban box cutters!!
“What about arming some pilots, Mikey?”
BAN BOX CUTTERS!!!!!!!
“Do we need to hire more screeners, Mikey?”
URRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRG,BOX CUTTER BAN, BOX CUTTER BAN, BOX CUTTER BAN!!!!!!!!!!!!!
“Okay Mikey, okay we passed your box cutter ban, what else do we need to do to make ourselves safe?”
We passed the box cutter ban? Sweet, let’s all take the rest of the month off. We will be safe forever now.

I guess that would depend on you definition of mass shootings. Does that count the Monash university shooting? Apparently not considering that it occurred October 2002. What many pro gun people talk about is there is more than one way to kill a person. Does your stat take that into account? Guess not because in June 2000 there was a fire set at Childers palace killing 15 people. I am sure those family members were at home when they heard the news and said well at least they weren’t killed by a gun.

We should also look at all the crime in austrailia since the ban went into place. Homocides, rape, assault, and robbery all went up after the ban. Each of these crime had their highest level after the ban was in place. Some of these crimes have not returned to preban levels yet and we are 15 years past the ban, this according to austrailian institute of criminology.

Austrailia did not have a second amendment like we do so you would not be able to pass the same gun laws that they did, probably doesn’t hurt that they are on an island where you can control what comes into your country. Unlike Australia, the US we have unsecured borders(otherwise illegal immigration from the south and terrorist coming to america wouldn’t be a problem). You would also have to have 67% of the votes in the senate and the house to repeal the 2nd admenment. And lastly the highest number of guns in austrailia that I have seen was 650,000, which they paid cash for, compare this to 300,000,000 in the US

You mentioned the Australian Institute of Criminology, so I looked there. http://aic.gov.au/statistics/homicide.html
This is what I found at AIC: “The figure shows that although there have been fluctuations from year to year, the number of homicide incidents has shown a steady decline since the inception of the NHMP in 1989. 2006-07 saw the second-lowest number of homicide incidents in the collection period.
Source: AIC National Homicide Monitoring Program 1989-90 to 2006-07”

David- Answers to your questions about the definition of a mass shooting, and whether a lack of guns creates method substitution can be found here: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2704353/
You mention the Australian Institute of Criminology, so I looked there. http://aic.gov.au/statistics/homicide.html
This is what I found: “The figure shows that although there have been fluctuations from year to year, the number of homicide incidents has shown a steady decline since the inception of the NHMP in 1989. 2006-07 saw the second-lowest number of homicide incidents in the collection period.
Source: AIC National Homicide Monitoring Program 1989-90 to 2006-07”

The security guard bought time for more students to escape when he engaged one of two shooters. This obviously saved some lives. It is in the after action report.

I wouldn’t be so fast to attribute poor training as the reason for missing a 60 yard pistol shot. Only fictional NCIS agents can nail the threat at that range. To paraphrase Lord Nelson “You can do wrong by putting fire on an active threat.”

I was thinking the same thing. Folks, I’m not going to get consistent hits on a run and duck shooter 60 yards away with a handgun. While I’m taking return fire.

I hit a running deer at roughly that distance with a Ruger .454 Casull. That gun was much more accurate than my current duty gun. I shot five times, nicked the deer twice, two clean misses, and one solid lung shot. The six point buck did not shoot back. Looking back, I would be heavily inclined not to take the same shots for fear of wounding the deer and causing it a slow, lingering death.

While I agree with you, my question would be why didn’t he get closer to take a more makeable shot? Now, I was pretty young when Columbine happened so there may be good reasons why he didn’t, I just don’t know enough about the situation.

One add on to the idea of more security guards/cops/armed teachers is to have a combat rifle (or two) ready to go in the main admin building. It would be under some kind of lock but quick access would be key (think of the scanned thumbprint safes). There would have to be protocols for this. Someone w/access would need to be in the building, or at the very least on campus, at all times.

Most of the security issues that face armed teaches would be avoided. The cost & logistics for this would be small compared to a program for arming teachers. Its a security measure not a system but one that could greatly augment any system. Also, a principle or vp would be bringing a rifle to the gun fight.

Isn’t it funny that the antis cry and whine about how ineffective school security was…but they fail to recognize how ineffective “gun-free zones” were (and always are) also?

Yep, they’re not brain-washed into an agenda at all. Pathetic.

I’d also bring up this pitfall about putting cops in schools: our children will grow up under constant surveillance and subservient to constant outside-the-family authoritative presence, thus resulting in a learned unquestioning submission to authority and government. Granted, most of the adults in this country right now are that way anyway and public schools are already cesspools of indoctrination. Whatever, too late to save the country anyway.

RF, you missed an important point. Columbine marked the shift from “wait for SWAT” to “rush the shooter(s) ASAP even if it’s just you”. I agree with your premise, but the biggest flaw in your argument is that ANY armed responder will be more effective if they run towards the sound of the gunfire. The guard at Columbine was never within effective combat distance of the shooters, and therefore should not be considered in evaluating the effectiveness of on site armed response.

Besides, the school cop at Columbine did shoot ineffectively, but really, how many cops train to shoot effectively with a pistol at 60 yards? I do 90% of my handgun range shooting at 7-20 yards. I’m not sure I would have done much better with a pistol in the same situation. I know for a fact that my local PD training specifies a transition to AR15 carbine past 20 yards, for just that reason.

Alpha- thanks for high-lighting the point about the shift in armed shooter response, from “set up perimeter and wait for SWAT” to engage immediately. That has helped, but doesnt change the budget reality at most public school districts that despite better training and tactics, when seconds count, the Schools Resource Officers who today are tasked with similar duties, and in some districts, monitoring multiple campuses, will still likely be minutes away.

THE ONLY DEFENSE IS ON-SITE CCW by trained teachers and staff who are WITH THE KIDS.

Many schools have trained security professionals that are unarmed. This is usually the case for larger high schools. The school I work at has 10 of these individuals. Some of them are are ex-law enforcement/military and can easily be trained to be a first responder. My point here is that while arming teachers is an option there are other school personel to consider arming instead of or in addition to the teachers.

The big issue with the ineffectiveness of the School Resource Officer at Columbine, was that back then the focus was largely on “officer safety” and they were trained not to pursue. After the exchange of gunfire the officer didn’t continue to pursue the attacker(s), he called in for backup and then joined in on the police barricade of the premises while waiting 45 minutes for a SWAT team to assemble. Which of course gave the killers 45 minutes to do their horrible deeds.

Columbine and other incidents since then have changed police tactics significantly. We know we can’t wait 45 minutes for a SWAT team to show up, we know that you need to confront an active shooter with armed resistance ASAP.

The second issue is that the SRO was sitting in a vehicle in the parking lot eating his lunch, because he wanted to try and catch some students assembling at a popular smoking spot. His normal routine would have put him in the school cafeteria, having lunch with the students, where he could have done far more good.

Armed teachers? Really? This is the trump card we decide to slam down on the table? Let’s be honest. Education is one of the easiest college degrees to obtain. I know it’s not PC to call teachers mentally light, but how bright must you be to teach k-6? It’s truely just babysitting. Arming teachers will be as effective as arming flight attendants after 9-11. Teachers are not warriors.

I believe the school resource officer needs to be become the campus protection officers. Plural. In reality, the school resource officer is used to get unrulely kids out of classrooms when they do not want to behave because students today have no fear of the teacher. They know the teacher cannot touch them so they act a fool and the teacher is left with calling down to the office over the intercom and asking for them to send the resource officer. Making the resource officer a babysitter as well.

The campus protection officers, plural, should have one job duty. Light up anyone that walks inside the building with the goal of doing harm. They should be team tactic specialist. They should be combat medics. They should be kitted out in full battle rattle. They should be armed with carbines. They should have summers off to take courses. They should get every holiday off the school gets off. They should know every corner of the campus they work perfectly. The job should be considered an elite job for a LEO.

They should not interact with the students. They should not escort bad students from classrooms to the office. They should not worry about enforcing school rules. That’s the job of teachers and the admin. The students should know these LEO are elite and will destroy anyone threat that walks through the doors.

Jamaal, how many teachers do you know? My Mom was a teacher, and I know several. It may be true that you can get a degree without being a genius, but to last and successfully teach in today’s environment takes a strength of mind and of character. There are the drones, of course, but they do not make up the whole of the faculty. The toughest person have ever known is a teacher. Well, currently a sub. She didn’t take to retirement, I doubt anyone in admin dared to kick her out. Another example; when they moved to Chicago, my Grandmother lied about her age and got a job as a teacher in the inner city ghetto, teaching the most unruly class they had. When they got out of hand, she marched them into the playground and lined them against the wall. She said “If you’re going to act like Nazis, I’ll treat you like Nazis.” The kids LOVED her and a bunch of her former students came to her funeral. And really, what you need in such an emergency isn’t the ability to calculate ballistic coefficients in your head. What you need is the sort of measured response that doesn’t panic, but takes even the most unusual situation with a productive action, and that is exactly the sort of mind that you need to survive as a teacher who actually teaches.

As for school discipline, what you need is, first, discipline at home, and next, school spankings.

This is just dumb all the way around. 2nd grade teacher armed will kel-Tec vs. Insane combatant with a vest on and carbine…. One person woke up ready to die the other woke up not wanting to deal with Billy the nose picker. I see how this ends.

As a former high school teacher candidate, my opinion is that arming teachers is a well-intentioned but misguided solution. Teachers are already (unfairly) expected by our society to be surrogate parents to dozens or even hundreds of students, many of whom have severe issues due to broken homes and bad situations. These teachers pay out of their own pockets for things that their students need, like food and clothing and endless school supplies. These teachers also have their own lives that they must care for, when they aren’t grading homework or writing lesson plans or thinking up ways to engage every single one of their students for 180 days in a sea of subjects and information, from the disabled kids to the geniuses to the average ones. Now imagine that you have just told them that regardless of their own feelings or compunctions or religious beliefs, they suddenly have to arm themselves and become crack shots and teach YOUR kids why they must never under any circumstances try to access the gun they are in charge of (and God help that teacher if their firearm is ever stolen or misused or handled by their students), and if any of their hundreds of kids (your kid among them) are ever harmed by some statistically nonexistent armed intruder it is their fault because they didn’t do enough. Tell the kindergarden teacher who just got out of college that she needs to do her best to turn a crazed gunman’s face into bone-shrapnel and goo with a gun as big as she is in a classroom full of screaming children before that gunman so much as gets a shot off.

Tell me that ANY of us could do that.

This isn’t asking for armed teachers. This is asking for Seal Team Six commandos who can teach Biology. And it’s just as ludicrous as thinking that banning “assault weapons” will somehow stop these things from happening. People kill people, remember? Well then let’s treat the people. We NEED to increase funding and efforts with regard to diagnosing and treating (that’s treating, not just drugging or paying off) people with mental illnesses and economic problems and social problems. That’s how we’re going to stop this.

You don’t need to arm ‘every’ teacher, god forbid, just the entusiastic, law abiding ones. Given that teachers in the UK have to have a criminal background check I assume teachers in the US do? By all means work on the socio-economic problems but we need solutions in the next few months, not decades.

As a current educator in a public middle school I can assure you some teachers are indeed warriors…the Troop to Teacher program has put many former military, including myself, into schools. I don’t claim to be some “operator” but I’ve got some experience. Expansion of the TtoT would enable many more qualified, motivated and experienced defenders.

Teachers are warriors? Give me a break. This has gone way too far. I’m about to get extremely non PC up in here. Let’s be honest. Education is one of the easiest degrees to get. How bright do you have to be to teach K-6? Teachers are not engineers, chemists, economists, journalists, logicians, accountants,…. I know it’s mean to say it but what other jobs do you get a summer break, winter break, spring break, snow days, planning period, lunch period, sick days, personal days… Breaks upon breaks. It is glorified child care and that is why our international test scores are low.

Teachers should not be armed. An 8 hour ccw class does not give one the skill set to win a gun fight. I doubt the chubby kindergarten teacher is taking classes with Louis awerbuck, Larry vickers, or Gunsite. I guess after 9-11 we should have armed flight attendants. Teachers can’t even work 50 weeks out of the year yet they are now seen as the armed resistance? Do you really want the lunch lady in a gun fight in a crowded cafeteria with your child in it? I don’t!

Sadly teachers have no control of kids today. The students don’t have to do anything a teacher tells them to. Once the teacher has had enough they call in the school resource officer. Which makes him/her also a babysitter now. My solution would be Campus Protection Officers, plural. They are dressed in full battle rattle. They have carbines. They are combat medics. They they are team tactic EXPERTS. They know the campus inside and out. They DO NOT deal with discipling students. Their only job is to destroy any threat that walks onto campus. They do not interact with students. The students know this LEO will destroy ANY threat so do not play games around them. They are elite LEO. they get summers off to continue education. They get all the same breaks the school gets.

I know I know. Schools are poor and can’t afford it. You would be amazed if you saw what superintendents make. Also principals. Or maybe we could cut back on hunting down goat herders in Persia and use federal dollars to protect the children. The money is there. Just my solution.